Music

Deez just wanna have fun

John Rogers | Sunday 5 September, 2010 19:41

Spaghetti-limbed singer, dancer, lover, philosopher, rapper and alleged tap enthusiast Darwin Smith sits piled under a tree on a hillside in Oxfordshire, balancing a dictaphone on his elbow. He’s talking animatedly about a new mini-project he’s working on, a rap concept album. “It’s all sampled from the original Willy Wonka movie,” he smiles. “Someone said Lil Wayne had done it already, I’m gonna check that out on Wikipedia and if he’s done it already it’ll be a bummer because I’m four songs in!”

If you’ve seen his band, the mega-fun and soon-to-be-mega-popular Darwin Deez, the idea makes instant sense. Between playing their perfectly formed and hyper-catchy brand of NYC indie-pop, the four take breaks from their grinning, whirling performance, lining up to do the Space Invader to some disco track, or to stage a dance-off that ends with Darwin sprawled out behind the monitors. It’s an indicator of the sense of fun at the heart of the band, and also of the unpretentious appreciation of pop that fuels Darwin’s songwriting.

“Deep Sea Divers was the first one I wrote, and that sort of became the blueprint for the rest of the album,” he explains. “That’s what I want, a song that’s simple and clear. There so many lyrics out there that are evocative but the meaning is just obtuse.”

Simple they may be, but Darwin’s nigh-on perfect pop songs are artfully crafted. The DNA Song is about feeling your identity being stripped away after a breakup; Radar Detector is a good-natured earworm about the intoxicating first flushes of love; The Bomb Song is about fantasizing about apocalyptic events that make someone realise they still love you. “I was trying to go for the consistency of the first Strokes record,” says Darwin. “And I was influenced by listening to strangers at open mics. Some of them you’d get something out of their songs immediately, and I wanted to be one of those guys. First listen, it takes you along for the ride.”

Darwin Smith was born in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to hippy parents who’d moved there to be near the Meher Baba spiritual centre. “It’s in Myrtle Beach of all the strange places it could be,” says Smith, “Myrtle Beach being a really… I wouldn’t say hedonistic, but it epitomises some of the more shallow American values. Lots of tanned people, lots of beaches and lots of beer.”

The moved to nearby Chapel Hill when Darwin was aged just one, but they’d make regular trips to the Baba centre. “It was a big part of my childhood,” he recalls. “Meher Baba was a guru from India who died 1959. My dad discovered him through a class in Harvard, and my mom had heard about it through her hippy friends.

That’s how they met each other. So I wasn’t raised Christian, they both were, but I was raised as a Baba lover. When I was 15 I met all these other kids who’d been raised like me and it was amazing, it changed my life. There’s a summer camp every week at the Baba centre, and it was crazy to meet all these people who’d had the same experience as you. But they’re all so well adjusted and open and loving. Maybe the same experience a lot of Christian kids have at Christian camp. But without all the dogma.”

Aged 18, Smith enrolled in the Wesleyan university in Middleton, Connecticut, but found the town stifling. “There were like three bands on campus, one of whom was MGMT. It was the most fun thing at the time, but it really wasn’t much. I hated it there so I left immediately for New York.”
It was in NYC that Darwin wrote his album, across three or four years. “I wrote all the songs myself and started performing solo, and added Greg on drums, then we added Andrew on bass and a guitar player, Cole on guitar.”
Many of the songs on the album refer to troubled relationships, loss and heartbreak. Darwin is philosophical on his subject matter. “People are attracted to each other, people need each other on an emotional level, and you only get to know yourself through other people,” he elaborates. “I got to give credit to Hegel for that, that’s his whole thing. It’s very true in romantic relationships but also true in your career and especially in your music career. It’s you experienced through other people’s experience of you.”

So is he particularly sensitive to critical response? “I do pay attention but I try not be swayed by it,” he says. “I mean, if you’re gonna criticise it because all the production is the same on each song there’s nothing I can do about that, that was my intention. I think I have a healthy sense of confidence about it. I had all the time in the world to make it, made all the choices, lots of deliberation.”

With that in mind, I wonder if the second album will have to be written faster, amidst an intense touring schedule. “Right, I’m worried about that,” he muses. “I don’t want that to happen. Luckily I don’t have deadlines because I don’t have a deal. It’s probably going to be helpful but then again it’s just smart to put it out faster.”

So Darwin’s mind is already on the next wave of Deez material. “I’m just trying to tap in again. I was zeroed in on the flavour of the album, like ‘I’m going to write more in this genre and I’m going to make more and make an album out of it’. Now I’m three songs into this rap tape and I’m already getting more interested in serious lyrics. You have to just open up to whatever it is you fancy making at that moment, that’s what you have to work with.”

And in the meantime, how is he finding life on the road? “It’s a new life really,” he smiles. “We’re not going home till November. Now all I really care about is touring and kissing girls I guess. And rapping.”

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